Hey Guys,

I hope the title of this post does not imply anything weird or offend anyone. This post is about some recent repairs/upgrades to Babydolls closet that were a long time coming.

A few years ago, I went through a phase where I redid the closets in the house because I COULD NOT STAND the white Rubbermaid wire closets that were all throughout the house. I believe I still have two more areas in the house that still have those wire racks that I will be changing to shelves and bars. Babydolls closet was the first one to undergo a transformation because her room was one of the first to go through transformation. Having said that, her closet also needed some changes done because 1) I designed the closets myself and my vision didn’t initially translate effectively; and 2) that child of mine has an insane amount of clothes that keeps growing and the growing required modifications and strength (I had to get a different type of bar because the basic was not strong enough to hold all of those clothes).

The latest and final change was to the drawers section of the closet. There were two sections of drawers in her closet. Originally there was only one section, but again, I designed this and modifications were made when it was “finished” and the childs’ clothes collection is enviable. The second set of drawers that I purchased were part of an organization system that came with 2 drawers. Something similar to this…

I purchased two of those giving her four drawers. This was attached to a 12-cube shoe holder. Babydoll has tons of t-shirts, graphic tees, workout gear, swimsuits, and leggings that were not able to be contained in those drawers. She was determined to make it fit or at least give the impression of it fitting until she gave up and had the drawers over-stuffed and left partially open. Then it was that she never would put away laundry, just pull clothes out of the laundry basket as needed, and finally she just had clothes in stacks on the floor of her closet that was NOT acceptable to me. I went in there to look for something and said, something has got to change. I knew the drawers had to go, but when I looked at replacement possibilities, the size of the space was a problem. She had about 24-inches between the wall and the system that was mounted to the wall. Most units that I could use as a replacement were 25-inches. The recent issue with the clothes on the floor was too much for my peace of mind, so I really needed to think of something. I went on IKEA’s website and looked at the PAX closet system again and prayed that there was a 24-inch cabinet. There wasn’t. BUT, they did have a 19-inch unit. Thank you God!!!! I looked at my bank account, then I went back to IKEA’s site and priced out what I needed. It would cost me around $200 to get the PAX cabinet, three drawers (I was going from four to three in a narrower space, but the drawers were a lot deeper), one pull-out shelf, one regular shelf, and a pull-out shoe shelf. I then prayed that they had the items in stock at our local store because she guys know with the pandemic, a ton of items are hard to keep in stock at IKEA. They had everything! I picked it up after work. Funny thing was the sales associate that helped me order the pieces asked who was going to put it together. I was like “girl, me.” I have always been the one in my relationship to put things together if assembling was required. We had a project for the weekend.

I went to Babydoll and told her that she had to honestly and thoroughly go through her wardrobe and get rid of the things that she did not, could not, would not wear anymore. There were going to be four piles – those we were going to sell, those we were giving away, those we were donating, and those that were trash. The purge resulted in two yellow bags that were either getting donated or given away; a regular trash bag of trash; and two laundry baskets of items to sell.

One thing to note: usually when we sell items, we are not super successful but this time around I believe there was a profit of $150 – unheard of for us. I split the proceeds with Babydoll so that she could use it for whatever and I what I had to replace what I spent on the closet parts.

Ok…so I took video of the process that will take up the remainder of the post.

I know I stated we were going to have a quick breakfast, but it was the weekend and I don’t get to have this type of breakfast often. Plus, I REALLY needed to take a moment to clear my head before I went back to putting this closet together.

The next video is comprised of 3 parts that were edited together. The last part of the video, you will notice that I was not speaking and that is because my voice went out. Two years ago in July I could not speak normally. I was hoarse for 3 months. I wasn’t in pain, I just had a very raspy, faint voice. I was put on steroids for a few weeks and was eventually sent to an Ear, Nose, & Throat specialist who along with a Speech Pathologist ascertained that my vocal cords had stopped working and I had to learn to speak all over again. A few months and a nice size doctor/therapist bill later I can talk normally, but can also lose it again at the very slightest provocation – coughing too hard, speaking too loudly, yelling, screaming, clearing my throat too much. I believe on that day, I was coughing over a dry patch in my throat and my voice went bye-bye.

This should have been the end of the post, but a week later tragedy struck. I don’t have photos of the tragedy because I was flustered and just wanted to get it fixed. These final video talks about it.

I did not realize how close the camera was to my face when I was filming. Once I get the shelf for the top of the closet cabinet, I’ll most likely post it on Instagram (if I can remember). I hope it doesn’t take too long for it to come in. The fur babies are always hanging around, here’s a photo of them lounging in the room as I filmed the video.

Thanks for checking out this post, I hope that you enjoyed it. I’m doing some changes around the house and I will have a couple of post about them as they get completed – laundry room, “home gym”, upper level flooring completion, etc . At the same time, this is Babydolls last year of high school and we are doing things to get her ready for college next year. We have a couple of college visits that we are going to take coming up (keeping our fingers crossed that the COVID Delta variant doesn’t cancel them like it did last year). I’m hoping to keep posting as we work on that and maybe I will share info about this process – let me know if you’re interested.

Until next time,